Making a House a Home

We’ve been working on home improvements every since we bought our home in 2013. This wasn’t a place we bought as a dream home. No, no, no. This was a place we bought with the idea of making it a place we would want to live. Location and size were the biggest factors in our purchasing decision. That and the fact that we could buy the house for cash and close in 2 weeks, since we had just returned from living overseas and didn’t want to put family out by staying with them a long time.

The idea of home is rather nebulous, really. We have a lot of sayings about it, though, right? “Home is where the heart is” and “There’s no place like home.” Some people even feel that home has nothing to do with physical location, but where certain people live.

For me, home is very much a physical place entwined with a sense of comfort, security, nostalgia, and other things too nebulous to name. I’m a person who likes to set down roots in a place that I can call my own. That’s also one of the reasons I like quiet neighborhoods, country settings, and ownership instead of renting. I’m also one of those people who can be happy pretty much anywhere. Just tell me where I need to be and I’ll set about making my own cozy little nook there.

Of course, what we’re doing is physical – tearing out walls and old wiring, ceilings and insulation, carpets and floors, windows and doors – and replacing tangible aspects. In essence, we’re rebuilding our house from the ground up. And what we’re doing is infusing it with the things that take it beyond just being a physical space.

Every decision made is something deeper than just “What color should the walls be?” The physical location we’ve chosen to live in means something to my husband. The palette we’ve chosenmeans something to me. For us, these tangible aspects connect with memories and emotions, and blend together seamlessly to make us feel like we’re home.

Okay, maybe my color palette shows that the home that will always be in my heart is back where I grew up. 😉 But I think we can have more than one home, don’t you?